He said it again during an interview with ESPN that aired Wednesday morning.

“Yeah, most everybody believes I will not fulfill this `last stand’ promise and come back and coach again, but it really is (the final season),” Jackson told Hannah Storm during a sit-down interview. “I really want to do this for myself.”

Jackson said last summer when he announced his return to the Lakers after they defeated the Boston Celtics for his NBA-leading 11th championship the 2010-11 season would be his final one with the Lakers. He also said he wasn’t sure what would come next.

But he would be done with coaching.

Jackson, 65, has repeated more or less the same message during the season, and he did so again during the interview with Storm. He expanded his statement to include a search for a new calling outside of basketball, however.

“I don’t plan to be part of basketball,” said Jackson, a former player with the New York Knicks and New Jersey Nets. “I don’t want to come back as an announcer or someone who comments on it. I want to do something else.

“I have nights where I’d like to be going to the opera or the theater rather than following basketball three or four nights a week. You have to find something that grabs you and holds your fascination, holds your passion.

“You gotta be passionate about something. I have to seek that. I have to find that.”

Jeanie Buss, a team executive who also is Jackson’s girlfriend and the daughter of owner Jerry Buss, said during an interview earlier in the week on Dan Patrick’s radio show she wasn’t sure what he might do next.

But she said, “This will be his last year with the Lakers.”

Jackson said during the ESPN interview he was not “a nostalgic person” and wasn’t wistful in the least as he and the Lakers passed the halfway point of the season. He made it clear there were cities he would not be visiting during his retirement.

“Most of the time I’m toasting my staff and saying, `This is the last time we’re going to be in Cleveland.’ Or some other town,” he said, smiling broadly. “It’s fun to tease the fans in some of the cities.”

Not looking ahead

Before they play host to the Celtics on Sunday afternoon, the Lakers have a game against the lackluster Sacramento Kings on Friday at Staples Center.

It’s not one the Lakers went to ignore as they prepare for their showdown with the Celtics. Last time they overlooked a team, the Milwaukee Bucks routed them, which led to a three-game losing streak that included their Christmas Day debacle against LeBron James and the Miami Heat.

The Lakers want to avoid a repeat.

“We’re going to be tested and I think everybody on the team is excited, but obviously we can’t look past Sacramento,” center Andrew Bynum said when asked about the next few games. “It’s going to be a tough game with (Sacramento).”

Second to one

The New York Knicks overtook the Lakers as the NBA’s most valuable franchise, and 17 of the 30teams are estimated to have lost money last season, according to Forbes.

The Knicks’ value rose 12 percent from $586 million to $655 million, the magazine said in its annual evaluation. The Lakers went up 6percent from $607 million to $643 million.